Voices From Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) (15 page)

“How long will it take you, to work your way through all these recordings?” he said finally.

“God knows how many hours there are in this box,” said Melody. “Maybe even days . . . But I think we can do better than that.”

She flourished a long data wand and waved it briskly over the box. Then she went back behind her instruments, checked a few readings, and smiled smugly.

“There! Every single file is now stored in my marvellous machines. You have to love digital . . . Now I let the computers do the heavy lifting as they go through each file and sort out the wheat from the chaff, so I only need to listen to the significant material.”

“All right,” said JC. “How long is that going to take?”

“Depends,” said Melody, not giving an inch.

“You don’t know, do you?” said Happy.

“I’ve never actually tried this before, okay?” said Melody. She realised she was still holding the data wand and tossed it casually to one side. “It’s new software. The theory is sound, but . . .”

“I always hate it when she says
but
,” said Happy. “Don’t you always hate it when she says
but
, JC?”

“Always,” JC said solemnly.

Melody glared at both of them. “My computers are currently digging through mountains of detailed information, looking for hidden layers and levels, messages within messages, audio palimpsests . . . All the seriously weird shit that normal searches wouldn’t pick up on.”

“While they’re doing all that,” JC said calmly, “what do your highly experienced instruments have to tell us, about our current surroundings? Anything?”

“There are no suspicious gaps in the data,” said Melody, peering dubiously from one monitor screen to another. “Nothing that should be there but isn’t. All my sensor readings are well within acceptable ranges. The only thing I have found, that I didn’t even think to look for at first because you so rarely encounter them out in the field . . . I’m picking up the occasional burst of tachyon radiations.”

Happy blinked at her. “Okay, I have heard you use that word before, but . . .”

“You never listen when I talk, do you?” said Melody.

“I listen!” said Happy. “I just don’t always understand every single word . . .”

“Tachyons!” Melody said loudly, “are theoretical particles that can’t travel any slower than the speed of light. Often associated with temporal anomalies.”

“If they’re only theoretical,” said JC, “how are you picking them up?”

“Because they’re not really tachyons!”

“Back away slowly,” Happy said to JC. “Try not to show fear.”

“Look!” said Melody. “I am dumbing this right down, for the technically deficient and the scientifically illiterate. We call this tachyon radiation because it often appears when there’s some kind of . . . disruption, in the flow of local Time.”

JC and Happy looked at each other and shrugged pretty much simultaneously.

“Still not getting it,” said JC.

“Something is very wrong with Time in Murdock House,” said Melody.

“Yes,” said Happy. “Got that. But what does it
mean
?”

“I don’t know!” said Melody. “Not as yet . . . I’m looking into it, all right? You asked me if there was anything different or unusual here, JC, and that’s what I’ve got!”

“Let me know if it starts to mean anything,” said JC.

Happy walked away. He slumped heavily into the chair behind the reception desk and started searching through his many pockets. He produced a whole series of pill boxes, bottles, and phials and set them out on the desk-top before him. Some were labelled in his obsessively neat handwriting; some were colour-coded with bright stickers; and a few had been left ominously blank. He lined them all up in neat rows before him without opening any of them, then moved them back and forth, arranging them in groups and patterns that presumably meant something to him. Then he looked at them and set about rearranging them. As though searching for some particularly significant combination.

JC watched him do it; and said nothing.

After a while, Melody came quietly out from behind her machines and walked over to the reception desk. She dragged a chair into place beside Happy, sat down, and without looking at Happy or JC, she began sorting through the pill boxes and bottles. Putting some in front of Happy, and discarding others. Happy sat back in his chair and let her do it.

“How long has this been going on?” JC said finally. “When did you decide to become his nurse and his junkie muse, Melody?”

“I’m only sorting out what he needs to keep himself sharp,” said Melody, not looking up. “The right mixtures and dosages, to keep him focused on the job. While still keeping him . . . balanced.”

Happy nodded. He didn’t interfere with any of her selections. He trusted her to know what he needed. What was best for him.

“I work out the proper doses for each pill, now,” said Melody. “My computers calculate the exact combinations to give him what he needs, what his body can stand. Because at least this way I have some measure of control over what he’s doing to himself. Chemicals are science. I can do science.”

“Oh yes; it’s all very scientific now,” said Happy. “Or so she assures me. I hardly ever get muscle cramps or cold sweats these days. I used to follow my instincts, with a whole bunch of trial and error thrown in. I hardly ever collapse, now, or sit crying in the corner for hours. I’m doing so much better now she’s here to help.”

“Really?” said JC.

“Who can tell?” said Happy. “My body has become an alchemical work of art. I should be on display, in a Museum for the Terminally Strange. My brain cells are so soaked in experimental medicines, I’m amazed they’re still talking to each other. But it’s what I need—to stay sane. To keep the world out, to hold the supernatural at bay, so there’s no-one inside my head but me. Never be a junkie, JC; it’s hard work.”

Melody finally assembled a richly coloured assortment of pills, mustered them into a neat pile, and set them before Happy. He sat up straight in his chair and looked at the drugs for a long moment, not even reaching out to touch them.

“Don’t you want them?” Melody said carefully.

“You know I do,” said Happy. “But given all the troubles I’m having with my E.S.P. right now; will they help?” He smiled briefly at Melody. “I should know better than to ask questions like that, shouldn’t I? You know everything about the pills except what it feels like to take them. I can’t live with them, can’t function without them . . . Oh hell, girl. We all do what we have to do, when all the other options are worse.”

Melody handed him a plastic bottle of water, and Happy knocked the pills back, one after the other. His hands were perfectly steady. Melody pushed back her chair and strode over to her array of instruments. So she wouldn’t have to watch. JC let her get back into position, then strolled over to stand opposite her.

“You know that stuff is killing him by inches,” he said quietly.

“Of course I know,” she said. “But it’s necessary. Sometimes, all that’s left is to hold someone’s hand while they put the gun to their head. You never cared before . . .”

“Of course I care,” said JC. “He’s no use to me dead.”

Kim walked into the reception area, through the left-hand wall. She looked solid and real and not at all ghostly. She smiled sweetly at everyone.

“I’m dead, and I’m useful!” she said brightly. “Hello, everyone! Isn’t it an absolutely super day? Hello, JC! How’s my sweetie?”

JC smiled back at her and felt some of the tension ease out of him for the first time since he’d arrived at Murdock House. He walked over to the ghost girl, and the two of them stood face-to-face, as close as they could get without actually touching, so as not to spoil the illusion. In the background, Happy was singing quietly.

“Where do I begin, to tell the story . . .”

“Shut up, Happy,” said JC.

Melody looked up from her instruments and glowered at Kim. “You’re late!”

“Of course I’m late,” Kim said cheerfully. “I’m the late Kim Sterling!” She smiled demurely at JC. “Sorry it took me so long to get here, darling. I came by the low road; but I took the scenic route.”

“I’m not even going to ask,” said JC.

“Best not to,” Kim agreed.

JC lowered his voice. “More private work for the Boss?”

“Don’t,” said Kim, quietly. “Don’t even go there.”

“What?” said JC. “I’m not even allowed to ask?”

“No,” said Kim. “Because it’s safer that way, for both of us. I am doing this for us, remember? So we can be together? I can’t go on like this, being a ghost. There’s no future in it—for me, or for you. It’s not only the . . . not being able to touch each other. You’re going to grow old, JC, and I’m not. You’re going to die and move on; and I won’t be able to go with you.”

“Ah!” said Melody. “That’s interesting . . .”

They all turned to look at her, then drifted across the room to join her.

“What?” said Happy, slouching even more than usual. His eyes were bright, his complexion decidedly unhealthy. “What’s
interesting
? Do I really want to know; and if so, is it headed my way? Should I be looking round for the nearest escape route? Can any of you hear a cloister bell ringing?”

“Steady,” said JC.

“None of my instruments detected Kim approaching,” said Melody. “And they should have. A ghost anywhere in the vicinity is one of the first things my machines are calibrated to look out for, above and beyond anything else. But Kim isn’t showing up on any of my very special sensors. Proof, if proof were needed, that Something is very definitely screwing around with my machines. Hiding from us in plain sight, behind a manifested appearance of normality.”

“I love it when she talks dirty,” said Happy.

Kim looked carefully around her. “I don’t see anything . . .”

“Neither do I!” said Happy. “And I am so buzzed right now, I should be able to see dust motes gang-banging each other.”

“Concentrate on the voice recordings, Melody,” said JC. “They’re the only hard evidence we’ve got to work with. Have your machines digested them all yet?”

“Oh yes,” said Melody. “Ages ago. Let’s see. Hmmm . . .”

“Oh God,” said Happy. “I hate it when she goes
Hmmm
. . . It’s even worse than when she says
but
. . . What have you found now, Melody, and can I please hide behind you?”

“For once, I think I’m with Happy,” said JC. “He may be a junkie and a paranoid depressive; but his self-preservation instincts are second to none.”

“Thank you, JC,” said Happy. “Nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”

“What have your computers found, Melody?” JC said patiently.

“They have been scrutinising the recordings with an intense scrute,” said Melody. “Sifting through the voices, contrasting and comparing them, searching for anything that might help us understand their true nature. From the very first basic sounds, to the most recent conversations. And it seems they all have one thing in common. None of them have an identifiable source.”

JC looked at Happy and Kim and saw they were no wiser than he. Somewhat encouraged that it wasn’t just him, he cleared his throat meaningfully and fixed his attention on Melody.

“Could you be a little more specific, please?”

“I mean, my instruments can’t tell where any of these voices are coming from!” Melody said loudly. “They’re not coming in over the radio waves or through the phones. No microwave transmissions, no electromagnetics, nothing! I can’t even tell which direction they’re coming from or how far they had to travel to get here! Hold on; wait a minute, wait a minute . . . This can’t be right. The latest recordings of incoming voices seem to suggest they simply . . . appeared, here, in Murdock House! This place is the source inasmuch as anything is . . .”

“I think it’s well past time we listened to some of these recordings for ourselves,” said JC. “Line them up, Melody. Start with the earliest, then bring us up to the Present. A basic sampling, touching all the bases, so we can get the flavour of what everyone else has been hearing.”

“I’ll go get us some popcorn,” said Happy.

“You stay right where you are,” said JC.

Melody’s hands moved swiftly over her keyboards; and a staccato series of distorted sounds issued from the speakers built into her array. Everyone cocked their heads, frowning intently as they concentrated, trying to make sense of what they were hearing. Just sounds at first. Quick bursts of raw, brutal noise, emerging briefly from heavy, hissing static, like fierce animals appearing and disappearing in the jungle shadows. Harsh, jagged sounds that might have been words, or might not.

“It’s like the man said,” Happy volunteered after a while. “It’s noise that our minds are trying to turn into words because that’s how we’re programmed. To see patterns in things, whether they’re really there or not. Like the shapes we see in clouds.”

“I’m not hearing any actual words, as such,” JC said carefully. “How about you, Kim?”

“No,” said the ghost girl, frowning prettily. “If there was anything there, I should be able to hear it. There’s nothing like being dead to help you experience the world more clearly. Fewer distractions, you see, without a body to get in the way. But . . . I’m not getting anything. Unless you count an increasing sense of unease.”